Tag: Healthy Living

I haven’t been food shopping in a while and had some vegetables that need using up so improvised and created a new soup. As you can see, instead of bread, I dipped in some lettuce leaves which sounds depressing but was actually really good. But if that sounds a bit too healthy for you, you can always grab a toasted baguette or slice of bread.

I’ve put the ingredients and method below but if you want to add more or less of something or chuck in some other vegetables, go for it. Personally, I love garlic so added in a lot but if that doesn’t suit your taste then just skip that ingredient. Similarly, add more or less milk depending on how thick you like your soup.

Serves: 2 Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

4 large leeks

250g Mushrooms

4 large garlic cloves

4 tsp Green Pesto

Romaine Lettuce Hearts

50ml Semi-Skimmed milk (Or whatever milk you like)

Method:

Slice your leeks, mushrooms and garlic cloves and boil them in a pan for 20 minutes.

Drain your vegetables and put them back in the pan. Add in the milk and blend until smooth. Add more milk until you achieve the consistency you desire.

Once blended, simmer on a low heat and stir in your pesto.

Serve with your lettuce leaves or bread and enjoy!

Let me know if you enjoy this recipe, I will hopefully be posting a few more in the future!

If you’re like me, then you have the same few breakfasts repeatedly and can get a bit bored. So this morning, I tried something new and made a turkey bacon and egg loaf. It was almost like quiche without the pastry, but with some spinach and tomatoes on the side, it kept me full all morning.

I used turkey bacon but you could chuck in whatever you fancy. I’ve also made it with chicken sausages and pork bacon and both were great! If you’re going to use sausages, pre-cook them or at least partially cook them before you make your egg bake so you don’t get food poisoning. And die.

Below are the ingredients and method; if you make this let me know what you think! If you don’t fancy spinach and tomatoes on the side you could always have beans, toast or hash browns for a quick and easy breakfast!

Serves: 1 Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

A splash of semi-skinned milk

1 small red onion

Turkey bacon (Pork bacon works well too)

Spinach

A handful of cherry tomatoes

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

Slice your red onion into small chunks and put two thirds of your chopped onion in a bowl. Keep the other third to add to your spinach later.

Crack your eggs into the bowl, add your milk and mix. Also add in

Use scissors to slice up your bacon into the bowl and mix into the mixture.

Line your baking tin with grease proof paper or grease it with a small amount of butter. Add in your mixture and cook for 15-18 minutes.

Five minutes before your loaf will be ready, put a small amount of water into a frying pan and boil your onions for two minutes.

Slice your cherry tomatoes in half and chuck them in, along with the spinach and cook until the water is used up and spinach has wilted.

If you follow me on Instagram you will have recently seen a photo I posted showing my weight loss progress I made in 2016. It hasn’t always been easy but I am pleased with the progress I have made and I’m looking forward to carrying on losing weight in 2017.

I think the New Year is a great time to reassess your habits and set new goals for the year to come. When I went back to university in September my healthy eating didn’t go to plan as much as I had hoped but the new year has given me new motivation to get healthy, drink more water and go to the gym a lot more. My graduation is likely to be in November and I want to look the best I can so I can look back at photos and be happy with the way I looked.

I have decided to stop eating carbs again which I did for around seven months last year and saw great results. Instead I will fill up on lots of fruit, veg and meat. I may try and introduce porridge to my breakfasts to give me fuel for the day but I don’t particularly like it and am enjoying smoothies at the moment!

I’ve also decided to seriously cut down how much Diet Coke I drink; I can easily go through a big bottle a day and have decided it’s time I need to cut down. I began this a bit last year and I started getting a lot of headaches when I began cutting down which showed me I might have been addicted to the caffeine more than I thought. Instead I will be switching to water or squash and only drinking Diet Coke as the occasional treat or when I drink alcohol.

If you are considering losing weight or getting fitter this year I would say go for it. Skip the fad diets and work out what works for you. In my mind losing weight is simple, avoid processed foods and opt for healthy options and do a little more exercise and you should start seeing results. But I know it isn’t easy and it takes a lot of will power and self control to choose healthy options, particularly if others around you are eating unhealthy foods.

Set yourself small goals that are achievable. If you have followed my blog or instagram for a while you will have seen that I like to measure my weight loss in bags of sugar and it was extremely motivating to track the progress I was making in a visible way.

I would also advise taking a picture of your beginning weight, even if you are never going to share your progress, just so you can see for yourself the progress you have made. I never thought a year ago I would be sharing progress pictures of my weight loss but I am a lot happier and confident today!

Finally I want to wish you good luck! Why not see if you can lose a bag of sugar this year?

If you follow me on Instagram, you will know that I weighed myself the other day and realised I hit my sixth bag of sugar meaning I have lost over 30kg! My current weight loss stands at four stone, twelve pounds and I’m excited to shed two more pounds so I can hit five stone!

I feel like I am back on track with my diet and gym routine now but have recently decided to make a few changes. After chatting to my housemate about my current structure of strict weekdays and weekends off, I realised I was letting my weekend get out of hand, cramming in as much unhealthy food as I could manage before going back to healthy eating on Monday. I’m worried this is really slowing the progress I could be making so I’ve decided I am going to allow myself three cheat meals over a weekend giving me room to have a nice breakfast, lunch and dinner! Hopefully this should stop me going mad and eating everything in sight.

I’ve been having loads of smoothies recently in the mornings for breakfast using bananas, frozen raspberries and blueberries and any other fruit I can get my hands on. I’ve also been introducing wholemeal pasta and noodles into my diet which taste exactly the same as the usual offerings. I still drink a lot of Diet Coke which probably isn’t great for me but I will face my addiction one day and cut down (but today is not that day)!

I’ve been going to the gym with my friend Liz who has shown me a load of new sets to try which focus on my arms and abs. I also asked my Dad to search the garage for the old weights we used to have which he sent down with my sisters when they came to stay so I can use them on days I don’t go to the gym.

All in all I am feeling really positive going forward and cannot wait until I can say I have lost five stone this year! I’ve been thinking about how much more weight I would like to lose before the year ends – ideally I would love to hit six stone but that might be over ambitious but I can only push forward and see where I end up!

To keep up to date with all my over-edited healthy food pictures you can head over to Instagram and find me at chinsnomore. Or if you prefer twitter, my username is also chinsnomore!